At this, Mr. Hugh Peters, the teacher, who had newly entered the chapel, spoke.
"Dost thou still so flourish? When the Lord hath been pleased in a few hours to show thee what mortal seed earthly glory groweth upon?—and how He, taking sinners in their own snares, lifteth up the heads of His despised people?"
The Marquess turned his back on Mr. Peters, and when the soldiers took hold of him and led him before the Lieutenant-General, he came unresisting, but in a silence more bitter than speech.
Cromwell spoke to him with a courtesy which seemed gentleness compared to the harshness of the others.
"My lord," he said, "for your obstinate adherence to a mistaken cause I must send you to London, a prisoner to the Parliament. God soften your heart and teach you the great peril your soul doth stand in."
Lord Winchester smiled at him in utter disdain, and turned his head away, still silent.
Now Colonel Pickering came in and told Cromwell that above three hundred prisoners had been taken, and that Basing was wholly theirs, including the Grange or farm where they had found sufficient provisions to last for a year or more and great store of ammunition and guns.
"The Lord grant," said the Lieutenant-General, "that these mercies be acknowledged with exceeding thankfulness."
And thereupon he gave orders for the chapel to be destroyed.
"And I will see it utterly slighted and cast down," he said, "even as Moses saw the golden calf cast down and broken."